SAO TOME, Jan 23 (Reuters) – A consortium of BP and Kosmos Energy has won exploration rights to two offshore oil blocks in Sao Tome and Principe’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the national oil agency said.
The two companies won blocks 10 and 13 in a restricted tender, the agency’s director Orlando Pontes said in a statement late on Monday.
They beat a second consortium of Portugal’s Galp Energia and Total, he said.
Sao Tome and Principe, a tiny island nation in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, is surrounded by oil-rich neighbours Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Angola.
Despite a lack of significant discoveries after several years of prospecting, the industry sees its waters as likely to yield oil eventually, and several firms are currently exploring.
Its 129,000-square km EEZ is divided into 19 blocks.
New York-listed Kosmos Energy, which is active in other parts of West and Central Africa, acquired licenses to blocks 5, 6, 11 and 12 in 2015 and 2016.
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With so much ocean, Kiribati is experiencing the future of our oceans now.
With the U.N. Oceans Conference under way this week, Human Nature talks with former Kiribati President Anote Tong — a Lui-Walton Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International — about storm swells, the Law of the Sea and what it means to be a “rational radical.” How did you first become involved in conservation?
Kiribati is a beautiful country.
What is happening with climate change poses an existential threat for our people, for our future generations.
And so because of the low altitude, the waves were coming over the islands.
Have you seen progress in dealing with climate impacts to your nation?
So we will control temperature rise.
People don’t like to listen when you are too radical, because people will find any excuse to reject the argument, even if they know in their soul and their heart that it is true.
How has diplomacy for Pacific Islands changed since you took office in 2003?
It is important that people understand that nothing is free.